Homeschooling for 3

Well, it's the end of January, but I'm finally getting around to my revealing my New Year's Resolution. Well, I guess better late than never. Following the principles of The Slight Edge: Secret to a Successful Life I have a chart that I'm using to keep myself on track this year. Each month I list my goals and then I track how I'm doing. And I'm proud to say that I'm doing pretty well (for a change!) So, what have I accomplished. This year I've vowed to have more fun with my kids. I enrolled them in a cyber-charter school that is doing an awesome job with them. They are having fun and best of all we're offline much more than we're online. But I sometimes make myself crazy by trying to meet artificial deadlines. So, for 2009 we will do our work systematically but I will leave more time to play with my kids. Perhaps you too have fallen into the trap of trying to get everything done and when you look around the kids have grown another 3 inche...

Dear Santa, I've been a good mom all year. I've fed, cleaned and cuddled my children on demand, visited the doctor's office more than my doctor and sold sixty-two cases of candy bars to raise money to plant a shade tree on the school playground. I was hoping you could spread my list out over several Christmases, since I had to write this letter with my son's red crayon, on the back of a receipt in the laundry room between cycles, and who knows when I'll find anymore free time in the next 18 years. Here are my Christmas wishes: I'd like a pair of legs that don't ache (in any color, except purple, which I already have) and arms that don't hurt or flap in the breeze, but are strong enough to pull my screaming child out of the candy aisle in the grocery store. I'd also like a waist, since I lost mine somewhere in the seventh month of my last pregnancy. If you're hauling big ticket items this year I'd like fingerprint resistant windows and a rad...

One of the moms in my homeschooling circle sent this -- it was too funny to keep to myself! The 14 Days of Homeschooling (tune of "THE 12 DAYS OF CHRISTMAS") On the first day of homeschool my neighbor said to me, "Can you homeschool legally?" On the second day of homeschool my neighbor said to me, "Are they socialized, can you homeschool legally?" On the third day of homeschool my neighbor said to me, "Do you give them tests, are they socialized, can you homeschool legally?" On the fourth day of home school my neighbor said to me, "What about P.E., do you give them tests, are they socialized, can you homeschool legally?" On the fifth day of home school my neighbor said to me, "YOU ARE SO STRANGE! What about P.E., do you give them tests, are they socialized, can you homeschool legally?" On the Sixth day of home school my neighbor said to me, "How long will you homeschool, YOU 'RE SO STRANGE, what about P.E., do you giv...

Educating children is a time consuming venture, especially when you get stuck in a tug-of-war over an assignment that they don't want to complete for some reason. I'm sure you've also experienced the whining, complaining and the waste of time that procrastination creates. This video may help your children (and maybe even you!) to visualize the importance of tackling our biggest challenges first and not putting it off to later. My friend, Pat Crosby, sent me this really cool video. Thanks Pat!

Hi, this just arrived in my email today and I thought I'd share it with everyone: We are pleased to make you aware of CurrClick's Black Friday Freebie Giveaway and Homeschooling Through the Holidays Sale , in advance of the general public. Black Friday is about savings, this season is about being frugal and CurrClick is and always has been about helping you trim your education budget. That's why this year, beginning Friday the 28th at 10 AM EST, we're inviting you and your readership, egroups and co-ops, to our biggest Black Friday Giveaway and Homeschooling Through the Holidays sales event yet, offering 28 COMPLETELY FREE TITLES from our most popular publishers and dozens of your favorite holiday education titles up to 85% OFF! This Friday, November 28th, put on your pajamas, put away your pocketbooks and "head over" to CurrClick's best ever Black Friday Freebie Giveaway and Homeschooling Through the Holidays Sale! **Look for these graphics on our homepa...

At the beginning of the year Jade and I wanted to do a fundraising project and were very happy when Agora decided to do a cyber-charter fundraiser for Alex's Lemonade Stand . Jade was quite touched by Alex's dedication and bravery to raise money for other children with cancer even as she was dying. So, this past summer we held a lemonade stand and were able to raise about $100 – not bad for a couple of novices, I guess. Jade wanted to do more and so did I so we set up an online fundraising portal at www.firstgiving.com/CherylHendersonKhalid in order to do this. To date this hasn't been much of a success, but I blame lack of experience on that. So, for I put this project on the back burner for a bit while I licked my wounded ego and tried to figure out a new strategy to contribute more to this charity. Then, about a week ago, I picked up my local "Our Town" at our local library and started reading through it. I was touched by the tribute that Mrs. Kizer gave t...

While in the children's section of the library my eye fell upon a book entitled " The Dragon's Lair (The Lost Journals of Ven Polypheme) " As I am a fantasy reader and was looking for something light to enjoy I picked it up for myself … and fell in love. The book is set up as a restoration of archeological records and they tell the story of Ven Polypheme as he goes through his life as an explorer, adventurer, and journalist for the High King. As has been my misfortune of late, I began the series at the end – "The Dragon's Lair" is actually Book 3 in this series. The other two books are " The Thief Queen's Daughter (The Lost Journals of Ven Polypheme) "– Book 2 -- and " The Floating Island (The Lost Journals of Ven Polypheme) " – Book 1. Because I do have younger children I checked to see if audiobooks had been created for the series, but not as of today. The story itself is fast-paced, sometimes funny, sometimes scary, but always...